We got the 24″ iMacs, AirTags, 10GbE Mac Minis (quietly), new iPad Pros, and some updates to services. But what does it all mean?
It means that Apple is taking a much more conservative approach to the Apple Silicon transition than a lot of people were expecting. Apple is not going to rush things to the market before they are ready, or before they can properly differentiate their products. Why was there no larger iMac or new MacBook Pro? Because the chips that would differentiate them from the existing models, or the “consumer” models, are not yet ready. It may be related to the global chip shortage, supply constraints at TSMC, or could just be Apple taking a measured and purposeful response to the excitement about Apple Silicon.
Professional or Prosumer
The real question at this point is; “Will the next releases be for Professionals or Prosumers?” Without having gamers/enthusiasts as a major segment of sale, unlike Intel/AMD/Nvidia, what is the next release going to be targeted at? Will they be releasing prosumer hardware, tailored towards small business, YouTube Creators, and their ilk. Or will Apple be releasing hardware for professionals, like cinematographers, TV/Film Production, Photo Journalists, etc? Of course, to simplify their supply chain, Apple may merge the idea of Professional and Prosumer into one category, and allow the user to dictate what they are.
No Difference?
I’m not saying that there will be no difference, but with the existing performance from M1, blurring the lines between consumer and prosumer, I would expect the line between prosumer and professional to get blurred equally with the M1X and/or M2. With the larger iMacs, Mac Pro, and MacBook Pro having options for more RAM, more Storage, more GPU Cores, but still with a bog-standard configuration that will do the jobs that most prosumers would want.
No Expansion?
I do still expect that the there will be M-series devices that are released that support expansion, multiple internal drives, PCIe cards, etc. However, given the performance that Apple is getting out of there chips, it may not be in the same way that some would expect. Maybe the SoC will continue to contain storage and RAM, that you select at the time of purchase, but perhaps there are some MNVe slots or SATA ports for adding more storage later. Additional RAM could be available, but would be more akin to a L2 or L3 Cache, running slower than the integrated RAM, even with DDR5. More GPU cores in the SoC, but perhaps support for 3rd party or maybe 1st party discrete GPUs, that because they are separate from the SoC/CPU can run at higher speeds and provide more performance that the already stunning performance of the M1 GPU. As Apple learned from the 2013 Mac Pro, professionals expect an ability to upgrade and maintain their machines to suit their workflows, and it would be a shame if Apple abandoned that ability, in the name of simplicity.